Proving copyright ownership

[steakaphagus]

Hi, just published my site with about 200 pages of info that took a very long time to write, and would be extremely unhappy if it was stolen......How would I prove I own the copyright? Do I need to have my content somehow verified now by a legal rep in case needed in future?
Thanks

[purplecape]

You can register it with the US copyright office or a similar organization in your country.

In the US, I believe that you just need to fill out a form, put the contents of site on a CD, pay a fee, and mail all this off to the copyright office. Check their site.

You do have some protection without doing that, and only need proof of when you first put the material online, but registering gives you added protections and the option of suing for statutory damages if someone infringes.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

You can also use the Internet Archive (The Wayback Machine) to show what was on your website at various times in its history. I think this would be OK legally as Getty and Corbis are using it in image copyright claims.

It should crawl your site automatically but you can submit your site at this link, [alexa.com...]

[steakaphagus]

Thanks guys, will look into both options!

[tangor]

Your work is automatically copyright by all nations signatory to the Berne Convention, ie, copyrighted when in final form.

Keep your logs (that's your Date Certain for Production - legal term) and use those if you need to. Should push come to shove require Google to give up their First Listing of either site. You first, you win...

Meanwhile, you keep eyes and ears open and slam offenders with a DCMA whenever you locate theft/conversion. Works great.